A Day in the Life

We have the potential to lose internet for who knows how long (we're trying to switch from phone-based to non-phone-based DSL, and I'm not counting on AT&T to get anything done on the time frame they say they will, given their previous incompetence), so I figured I'd better get a post in first.

So here's a video diary of a day in Jack's life--pieced together from several days, but an accurate representation nonetheless.

Jack wakes up at around 7 a.m. and makes sweet chirping noises in his crib until Ben or I pick him up and bring him into our bed for a cuddle.

Then Jack tells us that he wants food, so we go downstairs for breakfast together.

He then quickly tells us that he wants more.  And that he wants milk.  But he's still a little confused about the milk sign meaning milk from a cup and not milk from me--we're working on it.  He also occasionally tells us he's done by signing "all done" but more often he does so by trying to climb out of his highchair.

After helping Daddy put on his socks (and putting on some himself), Jack waves bye-bye at the garage door and we head back inside to play a little or listen to some music.  The conductor-type move that he does early in the video below is Jack's made up sign for music.  The dog is a birthday present from my Grandma and has become one of Jack's favorites.
Morning nap time still comes pretty early (around 9), but it's starting to get shorter and later.  It's down to about an hour now, which barely gives me time to get a workout and shower in, a luxury I'm going to really miss when the morning nap fades away!  When he gets up, we have a small morning snack.  Jack normally isn't really dressed until after his mid-morning snack so that we avoid getting food all over his nice play clothes.

After nap time, Jack helps me with a few chores around the house.  Every time I open the dryer,

 Jack now removes the lint filter, hands it to me, waits for me to clean it, and then attempts to put it back in, which he's getting much better at.  I'm now a little wary of letting Jack keep the lint filter out, since we spent weekend before last trying to fish out a toy he had dropped down the dryer.  He's an excellent sweeper.  I took two sections out of a Swiffer,

 and Jack takes it everywhere with him.  He also continues to love the vacuum, although I'm using it less around him because I don't want it to give him a stuffy nose.  Jack also helps unload the dishwasher by handing me small dinner plates and silverware.  

Then we either play around the house or go on an adventure to the grocery store or Target.  Jack's starting to get very used to his carseat, something I had worried about since he had never really been in one while we lived in London.

By around 12:30, Jack's ready for lunch, and at 1:30 for his afternoon nap, which generally lasts until 3 or 3:30, depending on when he actually goes to sleep.

In the late afternoon we check the mail, go swimming (we're taking lessons this month!) or walk to the park.

Dinner comes early, around 5:30, usually before Ben gets home.  But by 6:30 bath time Ben's almost always home now (hooray!).  Then it's a couple of stories (Little Bunny's Bedtime or Good Morning, Good Night, then always Goodnight Moon) and singing the lullaby that Ben wrote for Jack before he was born.  Jack usually throws his binky and one or more of his toys out of his crib one or more times and makes tons of sweet coos before falling asleep around 7.

I love our little life.

Love a Mommy

Jack's cue to hug his teddy bear or other stuffed animal is "Love a (teddy, duckie, doggie, etc.)."  He takes the animal to his left shoulder, hugs it, and pats it on the back a few times with both hands, fingers extended.  It's really adorable.

So today Jack was playing in Mommy and Daddy's room while I was folding clothes, and he was really getting very pleased with himself at being able to step on and off an under-the-bed container that I had pulled out.  So I decided he needed a hug.  But when I held my arms out, instead of just standing there accepting my hug, Jack hugged me back.  I mean really squeezed me on my back and patted my shoulders!  It was the first time he's ever given a hug.  And it was incredible.  He topped it off with an unsolicited, wide open-mouthed kiss.  He's the sweetest baby ever. 

This video is totally unrelated but was part of another project I'm working on, and it was too cute not to share.  Jack's become a total chatterbox.  Oh, and this is not representative of his stair descending abilities.  Generally he's very good at it, especially for a boy who wasn't exposed to stairs really at all until less than two months ago.  Although we tried to get him to do the scoot down the stairs one at a time on his belly method (the only safe way for babies to go down stairs, as far as I'm concerned), Jack has now taken to sitting on each step individually, then standing on the lower step.  It's not quite like the scoot on the bottom method some babies use--Jack's is a very deliberate and carefully plotted maneuver.  At any rate, I present 13 month old Jack in a morning video.

 

Update to previous post

MSNBC posted an article two months ago entitled "Extra Pregnancy Weight Doesn't Mean Fat Kid."  Interestingly enough, it was based on a human study.

Tons of pictures of Jack to be posted tomorrow

But first a rant.  I'm postponing the post that I started earlier today because I just have to vent about the most infuriating news article that I've read in years.  Possibly ever.  Not exaggerating.  It's hit close to home in several areas that I'm very sensitive about.  You'll note my comment is the first one about the article, written two and a half hours after the initial post.

Slate.com, my favorite magazine, has links to Newsweek articles in its margins, so when I saw the headline, "Can Pregnancy Weight Gain Cause Childhood Obesity," I panicked.  The implied answer to the question was "yes," and I packed 60 pregnancy pounds on my small frame (let's just say I gained more than half my original body weight).  The recommended pregnancy weight gain for healthy weight women is 25-35 pounds, 28-40 for underweight women, a category I didn't quite fall into. Fortunately it's all gone now, and I'm still not really sure how that happened.  So my initial reaction was one of fear for Jack's future health, as bizarre as that sounds since I've been worried for over half his life that he was too skinny.  But that's mother guilt for you.  (On a side note, all you moms seriously need to read "Perfect Madness," a book about how perfectionism among moms has escalated over the last 20 years, is reaching ridiculous levels, and how we as a society can work to fix that.  All of you need to go out and buy it.  Except you, Stacy--the copy I ordered you is already on its way.)

Right.  So my reaction to the headline was horror for the fate of my son, but as I got a few lines into it, I was horrified for a different reason.  The article cites a study done after researchers noted that children were more likely to have weight issues if their mother was overweight than if their father was overweight.  Rat pups whose mothers were overfed (doesn't say by how much) during pregnancy turned out to be way fatter than their fat peers whose mothers ate healthily.  Both sets of rat babies were fed a high-fat diet.

The article makes such 'reassuring' (said with loads of sarcasm) comments as "that doesn't mean that everyone who is obese is metabolically programmed in utero," and "overweight women don't always produce overweight kids" (emphasis mine in both).  Seriously.  It's all Mom's fault.  And one researcher is quoted as saying, "We'd recommend that women try to lose weight [before becoming pregnant]."  That would be reasonable to recommend for overweight or obese women planning to become pregnant but would not be true for underweight or normal weight women.  A responsible way to word this would be, "We'd recommend that women obtain a healthy weight before becoming pregnant."

It went on to say that "studies indicate that most pregnant women--whether they started out normal-sized, overweight or obese {note: it clearly ignores the possibility of an underweight woman becoming pregnant}--are gaining more weight during their nine months than the national guidelines currently recommend."  I can see how the study authors and article authors might think that they should perform a public service by telling women not to overdo it.  

But I see another side.  As a former anorexic (I was seriously ill all through high school and had occasional, relatively minor relapses throughout college), I see the possibility of pregnant women restricting their intake to a dangerous level based on these study results.  I envision the possibility of calorie worries and pound anxiety hounding women for nine months.  

I also question whether the weight guidelines should be revisited by health professionals.  Most mommies I know started out normal weight and gained more than the recommended amount.  And it wasn't because of junk food cravings.  It was because, like me, they were just amazingly hungry for nine months (or at least a year if they breastfed).  As a friend of mine put it when we were both about 8 weeks pregnant, "We're supposed to gain 5 pounds during the first trimester?  Yeah, I've gained five pounds in my big toe already!"

Nearly every woman I know has worried, if only fleetingly, about the risks of getting pregnant (or the inability to do so) "late" in life.  It seems like despite the increasing prevalence of women having successful pregnancies in their 40s and even 50s, all pregnancy literature has the looming threat of "35" hanging over it, as if pregnancy after that age was impossible and irresponsible.  Women don't need that overblown pressure.  And I think we could all get behind the idea that we really don't need to compound the pressures on those who are already pregnant by adding generational weight concerns to their worries.  Let's wait for the human studies before we start writing articles that create anorexic pregnant women.  Who knows what kind of damage starvation during pregnancy can have?  Oh, wait, that's just one more thing for women to worry about...  

The media seems to have tremendous guilt about having been a factor in an eating disorder epidemic among teenage girls.  Apparently the media needs to be informed, however, that teenage girls aren't the only audience susceptible to irresponsible images and comments.

Home Sweet Home

We finally have furniture!  And internet.  Disgustingly enough, it only took about a week longer for our entire household of goods to travel across the Atlantic and halfway across the continent than it took for AT&T to set up our internet service.  Ugh.

Likewise, the closing was slow to happen--it was supposed to be on the 16th but was moved back to the 18th because of our mortgage guy's mistake.  The 16th would have been a beautiful day to move in.  The 18th was a constant downpour.  Still, we made the best of it, with Nonna and Pops's much-appreciated help.

About two weeks ago Jack started going through an amazing burst of language development.  It started with a sign language breakthrough.  I had been doing baby signs off and on since about Christmas, but I was sure it was going nowhere.  Then out of the blue, Jack started making the sign for milk.  I have been trying to work on making sure he really knows what he's "saying," so I haven't introduced a ton of new signs since then, but Jack knows how to say food/hungry (although he seems to think it means "put the thing I want in my mouth"), more, all done, and bath.  He's working on "I need a diaper change."  And he's made up his own sign that seems to mean "I like this music," which is distinctly different from his dance moves.  Yes, he has dance moves.  I'll try to get it on video. 

Just after his sign language skills skyrocketed, Jack's vocal language development sped up a lot.  He now says dada, yum, bubble, ba (for his pacifier), and ball consistently, is starting to say doggie (it sounds more like "ge," rhymes with "key"), and says mama when I bribe him.  (I'm getting kind of shameless about it now--I'm almost to the point of letting him having one of his trinity (cell phone, keys, and wallet) if he says mama.  Almost.)  He even said "light" perfectly once, while pointing to the bathroom light.  That one was truly impressive.  He pointed directly at the light and said "light" in a very non-baby voice, shocking both Ben and me.  Jack's never come close to replicating that one, but we both heard it clearly that one time.

During Ben's time off, Jack learned a plethora of cool party tricks.  He will now put his hands on his head when you tell him to, will clap on demand, gives high-fives, kicks and tosses his tie-dyed beach ball (Jack picked it out, not me), and will occasionally give kisses when I pucker up for him.  Ben's trying to get Jack to do a fist bump to signal that they're Rams fans, but I'm trying my best to undermine that effort because Jack will remain a Chiefs fan if I have anything to say about it.

So I'm going to be better about blogging from now on.  I kept putting off posting this because I wanted to get pictures of Jack in front of the house.  And I kept putting that off because I wanted Jack not to have a massive bump/bruise on his head.  But Jack seems to have a constant bump somewhere now that he's decided he can run.  Every time one injury is almost completely healed, he gets a new one.  Fortunately he doesn't seem to slowed at all by it--he's still our sweet, active little boy.